Does Anyone Know How Many Signed Up For Socialism During

Does anyone see that the most successful socialist societies are incredibly homogeneous? Why is that?

The question: Does anyone see that the most successful socialist societies are incredibly homogeneous? Why is that?I checked the the answers presented by this point, and see the signs of fallacy are all present.First of all, how do you describe the “successful society”? By what measures? There are some popular human capital and development indicators. Included are access to and quality of education, medical services, equal application of law , free and fair elections, freedom to move/travel, free choice of occupation, fair and speedy resolutions of grievances, etc.By most measures, Soviet Union, Communist China under Mao Tse Tong, Cuba, Eastern European countries of the Warsaw block fail miserably to fulfill those criteria. I know it from experience, as I spent 40 years of my life behind the “Iron Curtain”. (I’m afraid for the most of the millennials this term is unknown).What passing for successful Socialist Countries are usually a handful of Scandinavian Social Democrat-ruled ones, such as Denmark, Sweden or Norway. I came across multiple Quora answers from the folks living in those countries, explaining that their societies are not Socialistic, but quite capitalistic with high taxes and generous social services. Those are indeed homogeneous countries, historically speaking. And that’s quite understandable, as the homogeneous societies are basically extended tribal ones and and a tribe is an extension to the family. A traditional family, in European culture at least, is only fully-functioning Communist society, as it was described by Marx and Engels. The concentric circles surrounding the family, are: tribe or village, ethnicity, and nation-state. In homogeneous society, the ethnicity is overlapping with the nation-state. Heterogeneous societies have many conflicts to manage, and are much less stable and prone to falling apart. Hence the demise of Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Austria-Hungarian monarchy before that. The USA is, and I hope will stay, an exception - with creation non-ethnically and non-religiously defined American identity. Identity politics, if unchecked, may bring a demise of this unique experiment.

Why does everyone think socialism is bad?

First of all, not everyone does.Now to answer why I find socialism to be bad.It’s utopian. Yeah sure give all the power to the government and those smart politicians will make everyone happy. Actually, give all the power to politicians and you get corruption. Even anarchism, arguably the most utopian ideology agrees, “there is nothing more dangerous to a man’s morality than the habit of commanding” - Bakunin.Equality? Should we be equally miserable? Human beings are naturally unequal (in terms of intelligence, physical strength, potential, emotional spectrum etc).Capitalism is the root of all evil? Remove capitalism and people will become moral? Equality results to morality. Oh yes that is why crime rates in USSR were so low. Well they did decrease, since the big powerful not-at-all corrupt government killed everyone who disagreed.A stage before communism? In Marxist theory (not every socialist is a marxist) socialism is the stage after capitalism where the proletariat riot and throw off capitalism. Eventually our society will transform into communism and the state will not be necessary and will ‘wither away’. Of course it will, like it did in the USSR. Again, utopian. There is even a socialist strand called utopian socialism.High taxes for the succesful? You mean legalized theft? Whether you earned it or inherited it, your money should be yours, the government should not force me to help anyone. I would personally help the poor, but I disagree with making it a universal law. I’m in favour of helping the poor, but against hgh taxes, the same way I’m against abortion but support the right to choose. Just because I, or the government, feel a certain way, it does not mean it should be enforced upon everyone.Nationalization and state ownership? Bro do you even economics? Privatized and profit maximizing firms are always more efficient and that results to lower prices, better quality products/services, and more choice for us consumers.I’m a Government and Politics student. I study all ideologies, give essays, tests, and exams on them. Out of all of them, socialism is the most flawed one. I think socialists live in fairy land.Anything good that you may come up, or other people come up and attribute to socialism, first read up on what modern liberalism is.For a similar answer, check out Panos Shady's answer to Why do you oppose socialism?

Is anyone truly against socialism/Marxism anymore in the USA?

The only people I know of that are for socialism are those who have not studied history or current events and just want to be babied and cared for by some one else. If you look at world history since WWI you will not find any country that has benefited from socialism/Marxism. You will find many countries that have benefited from capitalism. Socialism is a dream made up of Unicorns and Rainbows and little else, when all are equal by force then everyone sinks to the lowest level and no one has anything. When you are free to profit by your efforts then some will rise higher then others but most will rise. While capitalism does have its problems they are far fewer then socialism has. Many problems in the U.S. are caused by socialist ideas. Take for example Welfare. Some people need it and should be helped but others are freeloading off the system. We build boxes to put people in, able bodied people who could find jobs but it is easier to let the government house you for free. These places are often dirty, run down, crime ridden where people are put to get them out of sight. They are free so the people who live there take no pride in them. I know of one place built by private funding and sold to the occupants on sweat equity, you had to work at the housing unit so many hours a week to pay off part or all of your “mortgage”(it varied from person to person and their means). The homes are well kept neat and in good repair. One woman who lived there was a total welfare case, disabled and unable to do anything for herself but paid her “mortgage” by directing local kids to plant flowers in beds to make the place look and smell nice. Other people paid off part of their “mortgage” by helping her with house cleaning and repairs. Others did construction work or what ever they could to keep the place up, and when the mortgage was paid it was yours. Don’t work you lost everything according to the contract. This was not socialism these people got nothing for free they worked for everything. I used to go there at lunch and eat in the common area in nice weather so got to know several of them and their stories. There are many stories where a helping hand had helped people get a leg up and better themselves but I know on none where a socialist system has helped anyone better themselves.

Are there any countries where socialism works?

To a degree.All modern societies apply socialism to a degree, including the USA.I hate to have to do this, but let’s dig out the definition.Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.If the community takes decentralized ownership and consensus based control over any means of production, instead of private individual control, you have effectively “socialized” it.In the USA, this extends to:All public parksAll public transportation infrastructureAll mineral extraction on public land (There is a lot)RiversAll government owned companies: Category:Government-owned companies of the United States - WikipediaIt “works” in the sense that the country is chugging along and is stable. Quite well compared to other countries, in fact. That doesn’t mean we’ve hit a state of utopia, as your emphases on “truly work” possibly asks. I think we are very far from it.In general, US policy has been socialism for cost, and privatization for reward. Basically making the general public bear the cost of the failed gambles of the rich (ex. the bailouts for the financial crisis), and giving all of the profit from successful gambles to the already rich.Americans prefer to call it crony capitalism, but really it’s just really carefully applied socialism where the political leaders make the labor and property of the poor publicly owned, and then privatize it to the rich. In theory, oil companies who drill on public land should be paying the taxpayers for the publicly owned oil they take.It’s like how taxpayers fund the vast majority of all US medical research, and then the patents for the medicines are given away to pharmaceutical companies who charge Americans into their graves for the same medicine those Americans paid to develop.Taxpayers End Up Funding Drug Companies

Why do socialists believe that they have the right to take other people’s money?

Socialists don’t believe in “taking other people’s money”, but some might support seizure of the means of producing wealth (think capital assets and enterprises) as a means to transition to socialism.What socialists do favor is socialism, which is an economic system based on the social ownership and operation of the means of production. The wealth produced in a socialist system thus belongs to all of society to dispense with as it sees fit which logically eliminates the role of taxation as a major source of public finance and a re-distributive measure.This does not mean that everyone gets an equal amount of money or that people are not rewarded for their work, on the contrary, social ownership means that the surplus product created by industry accrues to society at large as opposed to private owners. Individual effort is still rewarded based on its contribution - but people might get a social dividend payment or public services financed out of the profit of socially-owned enterprises (not taxes!) in addition to their labor income. In such a system why would any individual socialist - or anyone else for that matter - want to or even be allowed to “take other people’s money”?